This book started off strong but I will say that my attention started to waiver around the middle. I thought the intrusive violent thoughts and fantasies Zac has were shown on page really well and I hoped for more of that type of writing and a more developed background with the other characters. I know they’re all messy teenagers with plenty of baggage but I had a hard time caring about them. I guess I got the idea that this was more of a slasher than a thriller, but it unfortunately lacked in the slasher area. Regardless of the rough around the edges writing, I still did see the potential with this book and wouldn’t say no to reading more of Jay H.D.’s work.

Not going to lie... I absolutely felt for the cover. Its gorgeous!!
It's an engaging young adult queer horror tale that hooked me.
When I finished this book, I had the same thoughts and feelings that I had after reading American Psycho. "Was all that real? Was it all in his head?"
So you will definitely question what is real and what isn't...and that is what I really liked about this book. Not really knowing what is going on and always second guessing my thoughts. It really kept me on my toes.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy and its author too
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A book that tell us about a boy who escaped from home because something wrong happened, in the coast on a beach, he started to work in an ice cream stuff, and he met a boy...

Well i had to listen it on the NetGalley app, despite it was a book not an audiobook, tho i did it as an audiobook right there while i was exhausted and i felt good while listening to it.

4.0

While I was intrigued by the premise of the book, I don't think I connected with the author's writing style so overall this one just wasn't for me.

what worked? there's a manic quality to the book that propels the narrative along. and the obviously immediately unreliable narrator really works well in painting this picturesque heated gax-sex-laden drug-addled summer thriller. is the whole thing just a cautionary tale on the dangers of doing drugs, oral sex, or eating too much ice cream? regardless, it works.


*I received a free arc from netgalley in exchange for an honest review

It took me a while to get into this one. At first, while I was saddened by what happened to Zac... I didn't connect with him. I felt as though he was just spinning his wheels and completely irresponsible (it's a me problem... not a book problem). Once the death happened... I got a lot more interested! Well-written and really ratchets up once the mystery begins. Great read.

This was hands down one of the weirdest books I've ever read. But not in a bad way. "Cream" starts out as your summer story with grumpy teen Zac just trying to get through a tourist filled summer at a country club. But when he gets transferred to work the ice cream cart for the summer with Jake, things start to get a bit intense. Zac is an incredibly unreliable narrator, and the story line slips in and out of real life and what feel like a mix of intrusive thoughts and straight up hallucinations. The thriller/horror aspect of this book was really interesting because it was more uncomfortable/disturbing horror than actual scary horror, and it definitely kept me intrigued and shocked throughout the entirety of the book. It felt a bit like a fever dream... but I'm a fan of books that weird me out.

This unfortunately just wasn't for me - it read like fanfic but I don't think it was supposed to. Some dialogue attempting to sound like teenagers made me flinch. Just not what I was hoping for sadly!

This was a great book. I loved every paragraph, every sentence and every word of this masterpiece! I read it in 12 hours, which is a lot for me to do! It had everything and more laid out in the novel! I sure hope There is more to come from this author! I am totally hooked!

This book was at once compelling as it was confusing and disturbing. About halfway through I was u sure if u wanted to continue reading because I couldn’t quite follow what was happening.

I have never done any drugs in my life but I imagine this book is the closest I’ll get to that feeling. This was such an intense and wild ride, I felt like I had no idea what as going on half the time and I loved it! Very dark, very weird and such an unexpected brilliant queer horror mystery that I will be thinking about for a long time.

Zac has unfortunately gotten a bad reputation after a video of him goes viral around his town, he drops out of collage and goes to work in an ice cream stand for the summer. Sounds simple right? Wrong. Zac befriends the towns ‘charismatic bad boy’ and starts to develop feelings that may or may not be reciprocated. He makes an enemy of Jakes girlfriend and everything starts going downhill from there. Not long after this a body is found and Zac is a suspect, this is the beginning of a quest for Zac to clear his name and find out who the real killer is.

The main character is unreliable and not all that likeable but we do end up rooting for him and feeling for him and some of the other characters. The majority of this cast are unlikeable and morally grey which makes it even more interesting as the dynamics are shifted and you don’t now who to root for. You won’t be able to put this book down once it gets going. This at first seems like just a simple small town murder mystery but it takes a very dark and sinister turn and gets weird fast. I found myself constantly second guessing throughout and the vivid descriptions create an otherworldly experience, mystery turns to horror and witchcraft and then tragedy. I have never read anything like this book, I think fans of Donnie Darko, American Psycho and The Craft would love this.

i'm afraid that the writing is horrendous. i mean, really bad. this is the type of writing that you might find in fanfiction, but not the good type.

Thank you to netgalley for the arc in exchange for a review!

eh. i just didn't care that much. it ended on an extreme cliffhanger, which could have been the real ending or it could've been an error with my arc, and it kinda says something that i couldn't tell which. i read this for the popsugar prompt 'unreliable narrator' and boy was he unreliable so i'll give him that!

zac falls in love with literally every single guy he looks at. at a certain point if the 'obsession with jake is so strong that he has to kill people' plot thread is going to work, he has to actually committ to being obssessed with jake and not men in general. that being said malaki was the most interesting character. i'm ignoring whatever he did at the end because otherwise he was FASCINATING.

i frequently enjoy not knowing what's going on in books but that usually only works if i really care about the characters, and unfortunuately i just didn't. maybe this is someone else's ice cream float but it's not mine.

I absolutely loved this! I’ve never read a horror book before, but when I saw this arc recommended to me, it sounded great. It did not dissapoint!

From the paranoia to the crazy things. I loved every second. Nothing felt boring to me. The ending wasn’t what I expected at all, but I think it was a good ending.

I feel like I got to know all the caracters good enough and there weren’t too many. This book had me up at night because I wanted to keep reading. It was very entertaining. There were a few minor gramatical mistakes that I saw, but other then that it’s great.

Also, I want to add that the smut was a good amount. It didn’t feel out of place or too much. It had a great place in the plot and I liked reading this as well.

I love this book and I will definitely read more from this author.

Thank you Netgalley for the e-arc. This is my honest review.

This book was so wild and unhinged. A truly mind-bending, heart racing tale of horny teendom, exploitation and mental illness.

I loved the commentary of feeling like an object after his intimate private videos were released.

It was so hard to understand what was going on, which was amazing. This novel is prime unreliable narrator, which is a trope I love. The novel is first person POV from main character Zac, quickly escalating and spiraling to even more unhinged thoughts. If you look up unhinged in the dictionary, a picture of this book would be there.

Reading this while on another planet (especially toward the end) was W I L D, highly recommend.

CW: SA, drug use, mental illness, death, gore, violence, drug use

This is exactly what I hoped it would be. Great writing and super interesting characters. A little too short for my liking. I think this could’ve been an all time favorite if it was longer. Then it could’ve been more in depth and had a longer lasting impact! I’ll be definitely recommending this book though.

Cream is one of those stories where you’re never sure where it’s actually going to end up until it’s too late.

Zac’s life is on a downward slope. Haunted by the non-consensual release of a video made with another boy from uni, he drops out and runs away from the life he was used to. Finding himself working at the local holiday park, he is assigned to the Ice Cream shack, where he meets the charming, rich son of the holiday park owner, Jake.

Zac is instantly infatuated with Jake and finds any excuse to get closer to him. Even if Jake has a girlfriend. Events culminate one night at a beach party where Jake’s girlfriend, Tasmin, is found dead amongst the sand dunes.

Zac decides to play detective and discover who killed Tasmin, using only a burner phone and her diary as his clues. What follows is Zac’s slow descent into madness where he stops being able to distinguish between reality and hallucination.

🍦

This was wild. And dark. You have to feel sorry for Jake, already a victim of an idiot who uploaded an explicit video for all to see, unsure what his next steps are. His instant obsession with Jake is understandable as Jake appears to be the only person who hasn’t seen the video, and is friendly towards him.

It’s almost painful to watch him descend into madness, and you initially think you know what is causing it. You think you, as the reader, know what is real and not. But you are proven wrong on numerous occasions.

Honestly, there was one part I guessed early on, the identity of Tasmin’s murderer, but the rest was not at all what I expected. Maybe it was a bit left of field, but somehow it still worked. Once I read it, it clicked and made sense. And that is a sign of good story telling.

3.25 stars
There’s a lot of delirious-ness and demented scenes through this dark novel. It was a little unexpected and different from what I normally read which was enticing. I didn’t expect the level of vulgarity that this book would embark on.
I appreciated that the readers didn’t know what was going on alongside Zac. I kept wondering whether there was some reality in his delusions or if he was just having a mental freakout. You sympathize with him but as the novel progresses the reader feels like they know and trust him less and less. I enjoyed questioning my perception of Zac. The ending wasn’t interesting and some of it felt like a too cliché/easy way to reveal the culprit.

The blurb described it as a «Fever dream of mystery, horniness and madness», but that’s just the tip of this trippy, psychotic iceberg.
I’m still not quite sure I enjoyed the ride on the crazy Zac train, but the author did a good job of keeping me hooked and wanting to know how everything would pan out.
For how much I didn’t really enjoy the plot or the characters, the writing was absolutely exceptional. The contradiction between the graphic and gory “dream” scenes, the snippets of normal teenage life and the beach ambience made for a captivating scenario that just keeps pulling you under, making you feel one with the craziness, making you doubt your own eyes as your reading.

When I finished this book, I had the same thoughts and feelings that I had after reading American Psycho. "Was all that real? Was it all in his head?" and like American Psycho, I really enjoyed reading it.
Written from Zac's POV drew me into the story straight away and my heart broke for him as he did not deserve what had happened to him. I just wanted to take him away from it all.
After that fatal night we follow Zac as he tries to investigate who was behind the murder, but as his thoughts get jumbled between fantasy and reality. as a reader even I was doubting myself who was behind it all. Which I loved as I do not like guessing/knowing from the start,
yes some of the scenes are graphic giving it that horror feel and the whodunnit feel gave it the thriller element making it a book I couldn't put down,
I am definitely adding this author to my list of want to read,